Get to the Point!
Communication in a Technical Environment The most important skill a technical professional has is the ability to communicate. This is what will set you aside from the rest and differentiate one consultant or firm from the others. I say this having spent my career helping engineers, geoscientists and technicians improve how they communicate but before you consider me biased, note that in 1944, WJ King stated, in his book, The Unwritten Laws of Engineering, that the chief obstacles of the success of individual engineers or of groups of engineers are of a personal and administrative rather than a technical nature.” I include geoscientists and technicians here too.
I want to offer you three other aspects of communication that are just as important. • Listen to what is being said • Understand your audience • Determine the best medium
Listening Skills
In his TED Talk “Five Ways to Listen Better”, Julian Treasure states we are losing our ability to listen. The “noise” around us has made us immune to the conversations. To avoid this, we use earbuds to remove the distraction, which isolates us and further hinders our listening skills. Just like the muscles in our body, we must exercise our listening to improve. Simply practicing being quiet or noticing the noises or conversations around us can fine tune our listening.
And in 1928: SA Harbarger, in his book English for Engineers printed on page 1, Chapter 1 “An engineer’s greatest asset is his ability to write and speak correctly, elegantly and vigorously. He cannot employ anyone to talk for him….or to prepare his reports…”. I apologize to women; back then they We can also adapt or flex the way we listen. For example, never imagined females in the technical fields. consider these five types of listening. So what is communication? The root comes from the Latin word “Communicare” meaning to make common or to share. Communication is defined, by the Oxford Dictionary, as “The imparting or exchanging of thoughts, opinions and information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium.” I suspect that anyone reading this magazine or who is remotely connected to a technical profession, certainly has ideas, opinions, and information. To be a true professional and a valuable team member, subject matter expert, or consultant, you must “make common” and exchange. I consider that skill technical communication. My degree from an engineering university is in Technical Communication. I had to take engineering courses yet my engineering friends never had the time or requirement to take communication classes. However, to succeed, the technical professional must effectively communicate every single day. Without this skill, brilliant ideas are lost because they are not shared, or they are lost in an unorganized or cluttered message. There are books and courses on how to write and speak, but 16 | The ROCHESTER ENGINEER APRIL 2019
Listening to Learn: Informational Listening to Understand Emotions: Empathetic Listening for Pleasure: Appreciative Listening for Evaluation: Critical Listening to Build Relationship: Rapport
Different situations and personalities require us to listen differently. Informational and Critical listening are required in technical environments but to truly understand your audience (which is our next key skill) you need to learn Empathetic and Rapport listening. When you exercise empathetic listening you pay attention to your audience’s emotions: frustration, disappointment, excitement. When solving a problem (which often is the scope of work for technical professionals) the best way to succeed is to resolve a pain. You can’t just listen to collect facts. Your ability to listen is an asset to your research phase, your conflict resolution skill, and your reputation as a team player.
Understand your audience
Too often technical professionals don’t distinguish between “need to know” and “nice to know” details and end up overwhelming their audience. Only include what your get to the point
